J?- 



THE MOVING POWER 



DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH 



IN PHILADELHHIA, 



SUNDAY MORNING, FEB. 9, 1851, 



AFTER THE OCCURRENCE OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE. 



W. H. FURNESS 






PHILADELPHIA: 

MERIUHEW AND THOMPSON, PRINTERS, 

No. 7 Carter's Alley. 
1851. 






// b~ Co 3 b 






DISCOURSE 



GALAT. IV. XVlIf. 
"It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing." 

And not only so; it is quite impossible to effect anything in life, 
without the due degree of feeling, without a zealous interest in it. 
A man must be in earnest. As you cannot set a steam engine 
going without making a fire, so you cannot get the power neces- 
sary to the achievement of what you undertake, unless you have 
what may be called, and what really is, an enthusiasm about it. 
The successful men are always the men who are really interested 
in what they attempt ; and no others. They love their work. They 
are inspired by a passion, and a passion so strong and so steady, 
that it takes away from labor all its irksomeness, and gives to 
self-denial the sweetness of self-gratification, and converts self- 
sacrifice into an exquisite luxury. Unless it is so with us, pre- 
cisely so, or rather, only as it is so, can we gain our ends. 

My friends, is not this all very plain ? Is it not universally 
true, true in regard to all undertakings 1 To imagine that any 
object of human pursuit can be secured without interest in it — is 
it not as absurd as to think of seeing without eyes, or living with- 
out air 1 

But it is emphatically true — what I have just said — in the case r 



of all things of a great moral or religious character. Whatever 
we engage in, having reference to the inmost life of us, to the 
growth of our being up to its appointed stature, in fine, to the salva- 
tion and perfection of the soul, must be engaged in in earnest, with 
the heart, or it will come to nothing. As a tree cannot grow, but 
must of necessity wither and die, without a root, so we have no 
force, we can have none, there is none for us anywhere, except it 
comes out of our hearts. 

Accordingly the appeal of Christianity is directly and mainly, not 
to our reason, but to the heart. While it requires us to do certain 
things and forbids us to do others, still its first and great com- 
mandment is Love, the Love of God and man ; and Love is, not 
an exertion of the muscles, not a conclusion of the understanding, 
but a feeling, an affection, a passion. It is the affection, in and 
through which we are to find all the strength requisite for doing 
and for refraining to do. When, therefore, the aim is our own 
improvement or the good of others, the indispensable preliminary 
is that we should cherish it with enthusiasm. We can do nothing 
for it, we are as helpless as the dead in their graves, we may talk 
and reason about it till the day of doom, and flatter ourselves that 
Ave understand all about it, that no one understands it better, and 
we may, in fact, understand it as completely as it can be under- 
stood, and yet if we do not feel, if we are not in a glow here at 
the heart, it is all to no purpose. Not an effort can be made, not 
a step taken, not a finger stirred. We end where we began. 
We remain just as we were, fastened to the spot, with nothing to 
overcome the dead force of gravitation. 

And here, by the way, the reason is made very apparent, why it is 
that we are all so prone to question and deny the possibility of ac- 
complishing any great object, the abolition of great wrongs, the 
realization of great benefits. There are very few men who cher- 
'| Q h any confident hope of the success of any object of this kind ; 
and still fewer who actually believe that such things can be ac- 



complished. And, at. one point of view, we hardly see how to ac- 
count for this absence of faith and hope in the practicability of 
great purposes. Here we are in the midst of an immeasurable 
Universe, all the arrangements of which point to good. Everything 
tends to the welfare of God's creatures. Nothing exists for evil 
and evil only. The evil that does exist conduces, or may be made 
to conduce, to good. How significantly, for instance, do all the 
aspects of Nature express the beauty, and all the elements thereof 
assert the glory of Liberty ! Its voice is heard in the roar of the 
unfettered ocean, in the murmurs of every wind that blows. It 
sounds among the mountains, setting all their echoes to its music. 
It sings in the song of every bird that floats in the free air. All 
things combine to announce and magnify it. And yet, notwith- 
standing the manifest omnipresence of an Almighty and Beneficent 
Power, we have no faith, scarcely any thing that can be called 
a hope, in the emancipation of the enslaved, in the elevation of 
our race. We doubt and deny the possibility of such things, or 
our admission of it is very cold and faint. We doubt and deny it, 
not because we are ignorant, not because we do not know that the 
predominating purpose and power of things is good, and that 
everything is fitted to promote the diffusion and increase of good, 
but because we have no knowledge through our own consciousness, 
(the only way in which such knowledge can be had, or is so much 
as possible,) of that feeling, that earnest interest, which alone gene- 
rates the force, which alone is the force, by which the wrong is 
abolished and the right rendered victorious. Our understandings 
may be perfectly satisfied. To the eye of our reason, it may be 
very clear that wrong is wrong, and right is right ; and we may 
see also and be convinced that God is always working through all 
the laws and forces of nature to advance the good and bring the 
evil to an end, still we have no faith, no hope ; and our counsel 
consequently is that things should be let alone ; and our knees are 
weak and our hands hang down. The plain fact is, we are 



strangers to that mightiest force in nature by which evil is defeat- 
ed, and good made triumphant. We have no real concern for what 
is good. We actually care little or nothing about mankind ; we 
are cold and indifferent, devoid of the enthusiasm for Truth 
which is the only power in existence that can enthrone her in the 
world. 

Once in a while, at long intervals, men make their appearance, 
uncultivated, ignorant men perhaps, to all human seeming, ob- 
scure, solitary, with no remarkable powers of mind, scarcely pos- 
sessing any gift of utterance, but with large and fiery hearts ; and 
they not only see the Right, they feel it — they feel it like a ma- 
terial presence, like a consuming flame in their bosoms. It is no 
matter of cold speculation with them, but an object of their idol- 
izing affection. They love it with their whole souls. And in the 
conscious power of their love, they have a hope and a faith so strong 
and so inspiring that they engage in the cause of the Right with 
a vigor that carries all before it, and fling down the gauntlet to 
all the world's wisdom and power, and, in the unequal conflict 
win immortal victories, and crowns of 'blinding' and imperishablt 
glory. Such an one was the Apostle Paul, who said : ' I know 
that bonds and afflictions await me, but none of these things move 
me, neither count I my life dear to myself, so that I may finish 
my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received to tes- 
tify the Gospel of the grace of God.' "There is something exceed- 
ingly majestic in the steadiness with which the Apostle points out the 
single object of his life, and the unquenchable courage with which 
he walks towards it. ' I know that I shall die, butl have a great- 
er object than life, the zeal of a high duty. Situation allows 
some men to think of safety ; I not only must not consult it, but 
must go where I know it will be most exposed. I must hold out 
my hands for chains, my body for stripes, and my soul for misery. 
I am ready to do it all.' These are the feelings," continues the 
eloquent writer Avhom I quote, "by which alone bold truths 



have been told to the world ; by which the bondage of falsehood 
has been broken and the chains of slavery snapt asunder ! It is 
in vain to talk of men numerically ; if the passions of a man are 
exalted to a summit like this, he is a thousand men ! If all the 
feebleness and fluctuation of his nature are shamed away, you 
must not pretend to calculate upon his efforts. Under the influence 
of sublime feelings, sometimes liberty, sometimes religious men, 
have sprung up from the dust, to shiver the oldest dominions ; to 
toss to the ground the highest despots ; to astonish ages to come 
with the immensity and power and grandeur of human feelings. 
In all desperate situations, these are the feelings that must rescue 
us ; when prudence is mute, when reason is baffled, when all the 
ordinary resources of discretion are exhausted and dried up — 
there is no safety but in heroic passions, no hope but in sublime 
men."* 

Is it any wonder now that we have no faith in the force of 
Truth and the success of Right, when we know nothing of the 
power to serve them, which only affection can supply, which can 
be supplied in no other way, from no other quarter on earth 
or in heaven, and which alone can make their triumph cer- 
tain ? 

We may ridicule and despise enthusiasm and call it by all sorts 
of disparaging names, yet it is the life and hope of mankind, the 
central and moving power. Without it all things would go to de- 
cay, tumble into ruins. It is the source of all human energy. It 
is the breath of the Almighty, the wind and fire from heaven, 
which, when once fairly abroad in the hearts of men, will sweep 
away and consume all opposition, the mightiest that can be mustered. 

*Sidney Smith. According to the estimate of the State of Georgia, 
William Lloyd Garrison would seem to be one of these rare men. For he 
scarcely opened his lips on the subject of Slavery before that great State 
offered $5000 for his head, surmising with the instinctive sagacity of fear 
that it carried in it the Abolition of that mighty Wrong. 



8 

So manifest is this from all that we know of human nature and 
from all the lessons of history, that when this whole-hearted 
affection appears in the world, when any number of men, 
however small, nay, when only one man, no matter how 
humble, is fully possessed with it, to resist him is a great 
deal worse than in vain. The world may as well lay down 
its arms with what stomach it can, and acknowledge its con- 
queror, and come to terms with him at once. There is no put- 
ting him down. There is no putting him off. He will command, 
and what is more, he will be obeyed. He may be persecuted, but 
he cannot be silenced ; for he will compel his very persecutors 
to be the vociferous heralds of his fame. He may be crucified, 
but he cannot be conquered ; he will turn the cross on which he 
bleeds into a throne, and kings shall come and bow to it. He 
may be chained to the stake and burned ; and the light of the 
fire that consumes his body shall flash down the coming 
ages, a beacon-light to generations. You may scatter his 
ashes to the winds ; and they shall be as seed, sown by the 
mighty hand of God, from which shall spring an immortal har- 
vest of saints and heroes. Put forth your utmost power against 
him and grind him into dust, and there shall roll up a cloud of 
incense to fill and ravish and purify and hallow the world with 
the odor of its sanctity. 

Seeing then that zeal, enthusiasm, love, or whatever it may be 
called, is the grand motive power, without which Religion with 
all its ceremonies, and Reason and Philosophy with all their wis- 
dom are as inefficient as so much mechanism of w T ood and iron, 
we find ourselves confronted with a question of indescribable im- 
portance to every soul of man. And this question is simply this: 
How shall we get this feeling? How shall we become inspired 
with the ardor necessary to the salvation of our souls andthe de- 
liverance of the world from the bondage of evil ? 

We fully admit the absolute necessity of being in earnest, if we 



are to effect anything for ourselves and for others. We know that 
we must love God with our utmost strength, and our brother as 
we love ourselves. We must love Truth and Mercy and Justice with 
our whole hearts. And when we are told to do so, we answer : 
'We want to love God and all that is good, and Christ and his 
spirit and his precepts as we love our friends and our children, and 
our ease, and even more than we love these. We would that the 
Best stood the Highest in our affections.' 

But we say, we cannot love, merely because we are command- 
ed to love, or because we want to love. You might as well com- 
mand us to eat and drink with a relish ; if we are not hungry or 
thirsty, all the commanding in the world will be of no avail. You 
may lecture to us never so eloquently about the advantages of eat- 
ing and drinking, and tell us how they conduce to health and 
strength, and explain to us the structure of the body, and show 
us the importance of nourishment; and what is more, we may listen 
to you with the greatest patience, and our reason may be per- 
fectly convinced that it is beneficial and necessary that we should 
take food, but we do not immediately become hungry and thirsty 
in consequence. We may wish that we were hungry and athirst, 
but all our mere wishing, however strongly expressed, will not 
make us so. We may still, after all, loathe food or be entirely in- 
different to it. Is there not a complete analogy here, between the 
body and the soul ? You may tell us of the divinity of truth, and 
of being true, and of the beauty of holiness, and satisfy our un- 
derstandings of the necessity and obligation of loving the right 
and the good with a perfect love, yet it does not necessarily fol- 
low that we cherish that love. We cannot desire what is good, 
merely because we desire to desire it. We cannot hunger 
for righteousness, merely because we should so like to be hun- 
gry for it. All our mere wishing will not of itself alone create 
the spiritual appetite. I cannot leap at once into the possession 
of faith and love, by a simple act of my own will. 



10 

So true is all this, so evident is it that we cannot cherish a de- 
sire, merely because we wish to cherish it, or because we are con- 
vinced that we ought to cherish it, that there really seems to be no 
little plausibility in the doctrine which teaches that we can do 
nothing for ourselves, that we only sin when we attempt it, that we 
must wait for the sovereign grace of God to do for us what is 
needed. 

And truly such would seem to be the case, most especially when 
we see, as we may, that, when God is doing a great deal for us, 
we still seem to have no power to do anything for ourselves; that, 
when the Holy Spirit of his Mercy darts its thrilling appeals, like 
lightnings out of Heaven, into our inmost hearts, those hearts re- 
main cold and hard as adamant, and scarcely one poor drop of 
human feeling oozes therefrom. "What have we just beheld ? Into 
this community, which so significantly expresses through its numer- 
ous Churches and its Sabbaths to want to love God and man, into 
this free, Christian, and praying community'comes a man, and drags 
a fellow-creature before our courts, a being made by the same God 
that made us all, God-endowed, a woman and a mother, and lays 
claim to her as his property, which he has a perfect right to sell 
and treat like any beast of burden; and this too, as if to give the 
greatest possible aggravation to the case, after she has enjoyed al- 
most a quarter of a century of freedom; and men stand forth 
amongst us to assist in the prosecution of this inhuman claim ! And 
was the community kindled at once into a flame of excited pity and 
indignation ? Has anybody lost his appetite or his sleep ? Were 
we born of woman ? Did we ,feed from our mothers' breasts 1 Is 
there any , touch of humanity in us ? Can we so much 
as weep 1 It hardly appears. It is true we shook our 
heads and said that we were very sorry, that it was a great pity, 
but we soon comforted ourselves with saying, that at the worst the 
poor creature would not be sent back into bondage, that she would 
be bought off, that the despised friends of the slave, the Abolition- 



11 

ists, whom we denounce, would see to it that she was taken care 
of. But where, where was that storm of public indignation that 
should have broken forth with terrific power, more like the power 
of God than the power of man, if we had any love of humanity in 
us, at the bare idea of so monstrous a claim 1 Where is the intol- 
erable shame that should bow down our heads to the dust at the 
thought of the sacred soil of this Free State of Pennsylvania turned 
into a very Guinea coast, a hunting ground, where human beings 
are the game and mothers are torn from their children? Where is 
that love of Mercy and of Freedom that such events as this should 
awaken into such power that we should rush together in a mass, 
with one heart and voice, solemnly to swear before God that, come 
what may, Union or no Union, such things shall no longer be ? 
my hearers, the condition of that poor woman and her children 
was pitiable enough. But it was not the most pitiable thing, by 
any means, in this affair. Had the worst happened to her that 
might, had she been consigned again to slavery, still the place, 
where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, 
would still have been only, at the farthest, a little distance off 
And her little ones — the alms-house and the penitentiary would 
have taken care of them ; and in a little while they would have 
followed their mother to her rest. But in what terms shall be de- 
picted our own miserable condition ! Here we are, lapped in com- 
fort, surrounded by mothers, sisters and children, bound by most 
tender ties, amidst the blazing light of a nineteenth Christian 
century, on a soil, consecrated by the tears and blood and memor- 
ials of the most splendid and successful struggle for Humanity 
the world has ever witnessed, yet we cannot be touched by the di- 
vine beauty of Mercy and of Liberty ; so chained are we, in the in- 
most being of us, by inhuman prejudices, by selfishness and pride 
of prosperity that we can hardly feel for our own flesh ; with no 
vigor, no life, but dead, dead while we live. It is a sight to make 
the angels weep in the very presence of God. 



12 

Truly, it would seem, as I have already said, that we never 
had any power, or, if we ever had it, that it had gone from us : 
power to feel, power to love with simple human affection what is 
humane and just ; that, even when Providence is assisting us to feel 
by events of the most awakening character, when the Holy Spirit, 
through the wrongs and agonies of a poor human mother and the 
feeble cries of forsaken children, speaks to whatever of humanity 
there is in us, and searches for our hearts to fill them with its own 
love, our hearts are nowhere to be found. 

I will not limit the resources of God's mercy. They are inex- 
haustible. He has events in store for us that will reach and move 
us, if the past and the present can not ; and if tears and groans, 
the anguish of a mother's heart and the wailings of helpless child- 
hood cannot touch us, he will send forth from the hiding of his 
Power, fiery and bloody ministers ; and at their presence the moun- 
tains of our pride shall flow down and our stony natures shall be 
melted ; and amidst trial and agony, Truth and Right shall be re- 
vealed to us in a terrible beauty, and we shall leave all and flee to 
them and worship and obey. 

But at present we are so fettered by our selfish and worldly 
habits that it is hardly possible for us to feel, even in cases 
in which it would seem to be impossible not to feel. Thus far all 
the gracious aid which has been afforded us in the Providence of 
Heaven seems to have been all but wasted; we lie bound hand and 
foot in the most deplorable insensibility. 

Nevertheless we still profess to desire to love God and his truth 
with supreme affection. We would fain feel as we ought. 

Well, then, although it is true that we cannot have the right 
feeling, merely because we wish to have it, yet we can do 
something; we can do all that is needful to be done towards ob- 
taining it. What we can do towards this end is little, but if we do 
that little, all will be done; for God is at hand to make good the de- 
ficiency^ our power. lie is here, always ready to help us, not in any 



13 

supernatural and extraordinary way, but in the plain course of 
nature and providence. He is supplying us with abundant and power- 
ful causes and occasions for feeling. And as the hunger of the body 
may be stimulated by the exhibition of food, so the love of God is 
continually providing us with opportunities, placing us in situa- 
tions, causing occurrences to take place before our eyes, fitted to 
create in us the sacred hunger for Righteousness, the love of the 
good, which is the spring of all power. 

And the one thing we have to do is simply this: To attend. 
Although we cannot believe or love, merely because we will so to 
do, it clearly lies within our ability to give attention to what sounds 
in our ears, to what passes before our eyes. We can command 
our attention if we will. Is is within our ability to say whether 
we will put our fingers in our ears or not, whether we will keep 
our eyes open or shut. He then that has eyes to see, let him see ! 
He that has ears to hear, let him hear ! 

If we will only pause and consider why it is that men are so de- 
ficient in right feeling, we shall perceive that it is because, although 
they have eyes, yet they do not see, and ears, yet they do not hear. 
We think it a very small matter whether we use our eyes and ears. 
It is no matter of principle with us, but only of idle curiosity. If 
we do not happen to like what is to be seen or heard, if it does not 
suit our notions, our prejudices, we have not the slightest scruple — 
we consider ourselves at perfect liberty to walk away. And yet, 
jn turning thus thoughtlessly away, in refusing to attend, we may 
wrong our own souls most fearfully. We defraud ourselves of op- 
portunities of life and power, we know not how precious. On such 
occasions, of little moment as we may think them, we seal our own 
doom. Then the Judge was seated and the Book was opened and the 
sentence was pronounced at the dread invisible tribunal, then, when 
our feet were perhaps on the threshold of Heaven, and we knew 
it not, but turned recklessly away. Then we might have entered upon 
a new life, a new world of truth would have dawned upon us, a 



14 

new fountain of power gushed up within us. Without being aware of 
it, we have passed through a crisis which will determine our condi- 
tion, we know not for how long ; and that thoughtless act of wil- 
ful inattention consigns our mind to a darkness that deepens at 
every step, and our hearts to a spiritual stupor that shall wrap us 
like a shroud, and from which nothing in the usual order of things 
can startle us. No matter how vigorous may be our understandings, 
or how highly cultivated, yet if, having ears to hear, we will not 
hear, our hearts will become harder than the nether millstone ; 
and mothers may be torn from their children again and again, and 
the most outrageous injustice be enacted, and we shall be incapable 
of feeling any pity. Take heed, then, I beseech you, take heed 
how you hear ; for unto him, who exerts what power he has to 
hear, be it ever so little, will more power be given, but from him, 
who does not exert the power that he may, will be taken away — 
he will inevitably lose — what power he has. 

It appears now that, in order to be inspired with the earnest- 
ness in the cause of the Right, which is of such vital importance, 
and which we all profess to desire, we can do something. We can 
command our attention. We can use our eyes and ears, and give 
heed to all those occurrences by which God acts upon our nature to 
awaken our sympathies and inspire us with his own omnipotent 
spirit. Here then is one thing we can do. Do, my hearers, give 
it your consideration. 

In addition, we can invigorate the true spirit by being faithful to 
it, when it exists within us in any degree. We can do something 
to keep it from being quenched. What we know to be right, let 
us commit ourselves to that ; and then we shall find ourselves 
growing strong, when we have rendered the smallest service to 
Truth and Right. Remember the wise injunction : Do what you 
know you should, and a new light will shine upon your path, a new 
life animate you. Unlike the appetite of the body, the hunger of 
ihe soul is stimulated by being fed ; it is not satisfied. 'Blessed 



15 

are they who hunger after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' 
Filled — with what ? Filled with that supreme desire, that absorb- 
ing love of what is good, which is at once the eternal hunger and 
the infinite satisfaction of the soul. Again therefore I say, com- 
mit youself to the great cause of God and Humanity. Speak for 
it. Stand up for it. Do not be, like the politicians, forever under 
the necessity of defining your position. Let your position define 
itself; so that no man can mistake it, let him look at it from what 
quarter he may, from the East or the West, from the North or the 
South. And then, when you find yourself irretrievably bound to 
the stand which you have taken, you will naturally be prompted, 
as every man is, who, using the powers God has given him, has a 
position of his own, to make good your position to yourself and to 
all the world ; and you will find yourself growing more and more 
in earnest in the use of your eyes and ears and of all the faculties 
of thought and feeling with which you are endowed. As you grow 
thoughtful and earnest, as you muse, the fire will burn. You will 
be inspired with that pure and powerful spirit which the Almighty 
breathes into every true soul. Thus will come to you, almost 
before you are aware, the zeal, of which you once thought 
yourself incapable, which you profess you should like to 
have, but which all your wishes and professions will never bring 
you. 

Finally, as to accomplish any good thing, we must be in 
earnest, as it is not enough that our reason is convinced, as we 
must feel deeply, it follows that, when the love of Righteousness 
and Freedom is awakened among us in the due strength, when 
the hearts of the great majority of the people are inspired by it, the 
giant Wrong.which now rests upon this nation,likesome huge weight 
of granite or of iron, seeming to defy all our efforts at its removal, and 
actually defying all the shallow compromises of politicians, will 
vanish before the burning hearts of the people, like a foul vapor of 
the night before the beams of the morning sun. In the victorious 






16 

faith of a great enthusiasm, we shall look upon it as it flits away, 
and wonder where the mighty difficulty was. In the meanwhile 
our plain duty is to put our ourselves, promptly and cordially, in 
alliance with the Providence of Almighty God, who, through the 
events daily occurring right before our eyes, is seeking to compel 
and fix our attention and make us feel. Labouring together with 
God, we must keep our own hearts wide open for the communica- 
tions of his love, and do our utmost, each in his place, to stir up 
the hearts of those around us, till they glow and burn with an all- 
conquering love of Freedom, forget their sleep, their daily busi- 
ness and their daily bread, yield themselves up exultingly to the 
blessed service of wronged and hunted men, and count it infinitely 
better than money or office to live and die for God and the Right. 



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